Bill Gates is again the richest person on earth, with a net worth of $87 billion

Wikimedia CommonsBill and Melinda Gates control more than $40 billion under the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Some things never change: Bill Gates is still the richest person in the world. He’s been among the wealthiest since Microsoft went public in 1986, and he only got richer as the company’s software became the de facto standard on computers around the world.

“I’m certainly well taken care of in terms of food and clothes,” he said in a 2013 Telegraph article. “Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. Its utility is entirely in building an organisation and getting the resources out to the poorest in the world.”

Since stepping down as CEO of Microsoft in 2000, Gates has shifted his focus to global philanthropy. He and his wife Melinda run one of the most powerful charitable organisations in the world, controlling an endowment of more than $40 billion
. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation regularly donates millions to causes in agricultural development, emergency relief, urban poverty, global health, and education. The foundation made its largest single donation ever in 2014 — a $50 million gift to fight the spread Ebola in West Africa.